Isabella Dutton
Image Credit: Daily Mail
Isabella Dutton, a 57-year-old UK Mother has written an article for The Daily Mail, explaining why she calls having her two children as ‘the biggest mistake of her life’.
At the age of 22, Isabella had her first child, a boy named Stuart. After she had him, she had to give up her career as a typist. She said that by becoming a full time Mum, she didn’t miss a job, she missed things like independence and peace.
She writes: ‘I remember asking myself, ‘Is he really mine?’ He could, quite literally, have been anyone’s baby. Had a kind stranger offered to adopt him at that moment, I would not have objected. Still, I wished no harm on Stuart and invested every ounce of my energy in caring for him. Even so, I know my life would have been much happier and more fulfilled without children.’
Image Credit: Daily Mail
Just over two years later, despite hating being a mother, she thought it would be selfish and cruel to not give her son a sibling. She had her second child, a girl.
Explaining how she felt about her daughter, she writes: ‘I felt precisely the same indifference towards her as I had to Stuart, but I knew I would care for Jo to the best of my ability, and love her as I’d grown to love him. Yet I dreaded her dependence; resented the time she would consume, and that like parasites, both my children would continue to take from me and give nothing meaningful back in return.’
She also says, ‘It was not that I seethed each day with resentment towards my children; more that I felt oppressed by my constant responsibility for them. Young children prevent you from being spontaneous; every outing becomes an expedition. If you take your job as a parent seriously, you always put their needs before your own. Having children consigns you to an endless existence of shelling out financially and emotionally, with little or no return. It puts a terrible strain on your marriage and is perennially exhausting. And your job is never done.’
When Isabella first met her husband, he knew that she didn’t want children. However, a few years down the track he asked the question again. She said that even thought she still wasn’t keen on the idea, she got pregnant because she loved him.
She says she knows ‘there are millions who will consider me heinously cold-blooded and unnatural’, but believes that there are also other mothers who secretly feel the same.
